


cast out your idols

by Windian



Category: Tales of Graces
Genre: Day Two: Missing (memories), Fodra, Gen, Pre-Canon, Tales Whump Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-24
Updated: 2018-09-24
Packaged: 2019-07-16 04:35:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16078550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Windian/pseuds/Windian
Summary: It takes 1,000 years for Protos Heis to learn to forget.





	cast out your idols

Protos Heis is a weapon. Sharpened and ready. A weapon does not need rest. A weapon does not need food. A weapon does not _want._

Yet outside of her programming, Protos Heis feels a spark of something not unlike want: simple curiosity.

Its orders are to return home, but outside the old temple on the city’s outskirts, it lingers. Faded, worn away like a stone in a stream, the temple attracts little attention between the bright shops and boutiques. Their neon signs burn their way into Protos Heis's vision even when it closes its eyes, domestic androids calling out to _come in, come in, every day's a sale, every day's a win, come on in~  
_

Protos Heis accesses the data files on its headset. 

_What is a temple?_

_A place of worship._

_What is worship?_

_The act of giving reverence and bestowing honour upon gods(s)._

_What is a god?_ Asks Protos Heis. _Can you touch it? Can you hold it? Why do you revere it?_

 

> _noun_
> 
> _the one Supreme Being, the creator and ruler of the universe._

If Protos Heis knew the significance of scratching its head, it probably would.

In its loitering, it doesn’t notice the priest in white robes approach.

Please, child, come in, he says. All are welcome here.

Protos Heis comes in. It was asked, after all.

Inside, it tilts its head and admires the crumbling idolatry, the gold leaf flaking from the gilding. The alter swept dutifully clean, dressed with fresh flowers.

The old ways are being forgotten, the priest says, by way of explanation. Many are even forgetting the God who created them.

It was God who created us? Asks Protos Heis.

Indeed, my child.

But Protos Heis is not a child, nor a human, as the man assumes. It was created in a lab. It was created with a purpose.

 

Protos Heis was made by a human woman called Emeraude. Emeraude taught it to speak, to talk, to fight.

Protos Heis asks, upon its return to the lab: Emeraude, are you a god?

Emeraude laughs, which is an odd response. Protos Heis had not intended her question as a joke.

Wherever did you get that notion from, Protos Heis?

Humans revere the man who created them, it replies. There are statues of him in the temple. He’s made of gold and wears a dress. You created me. Does that mean that you are my god?

Emeraude chuckles, taken by the idea. She cups Protos Heis’s cheek. Her fingernails are very long.

I suppose I am. Yes.

I see. Thank you, says Protos Heis, satisfied. The conversation is dropped, but the thought lingers, a lost seed taking root in fertile soil.

 

Gods, Protos Heis learns, can be forgotten.

 

The forgetting takes a long time. It takes a journey to another world, a millenia long chase against its own shadow and a millenia of broken bones. Protos Heis is a weapon, sharpened and ready. For a thousand years, there exists only itself, and The Enemy.

After a long battle, it puts itself to sleep. Grass grows up high around it, weeds wind around its broken bent body like a cradle. The paint is peeling on the idols. Like a human, it lets itself forget.


End file.
